It is widely assumed that people need to engage in intellectual activities such as solving crossword puzzles or mathematics problems...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
It is widely assumed that people need to engage in intellectual activities such as solving crossword puzzles or mathematics problems in order to maintain mental sharpness as they age. In fact, however, simply talking to other people—that is, participating in social interaction, which engages many mental and perceptual skills—suffices. Evidence to this effect comes from a study showing that the more social contact people report, the better their mental skills.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the force of the evidence cited?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| It is widely assumed that people need to engage in intellectual activities such as solving crossword puzzles or mathematics problems in order to maintain mental sharpness as they age. |
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| In fact, however, simply talking to other people—that is, participating in social interaction, which engages many mental and perceptual skills—suffices. |
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| Evidence to this effect comes from a study showing that the more social contact people report, the better their mental skills. |
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Argument Flow:
The author starts by acknowledging what most people believe about maintaining mental sharpness, then directly challenges this belief by claiming social interaction alone is sufficient. Finally, the author backs up this counter-claim with study evidence showing a positive relationship between social contact and mental abilities.
Main Conclusion:
Simply talking to other people is enough to maintain mental sharpness as we age, rather than needing formal intellectual activities like puzzles or math problems.
Logical Structure:
The evidence (study showing correlation between social contact and mental skills) is used to support the conclusion that social interaction suffices for mental sharpness. However, we need to watch for potential weaknesses in this correlation-based evidence.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that social interaction alone is sufficient to maintain mental sharpness
Precision of Claims
The key claim is that 'simply talking to other people suffices' to maintain mental sharpness. The evidence shows a correlation between 'more social contact' and 'better mental skills'
Strategy
We need to attack the connection between the evidence (correlation study) and the conclusion (social interaction suffices). The biggest vulnerability is that correlation doesn't prove causation. We should look for alternative explanations for why people with more social contact have better mental skills, or reasons why the study evidence doesn't actually support the conclusion
This choice discusses general advice about exercising physical and mental capacities as people age. While this relates to the topic of maintaining abilities with age, it doesn't address the specific evidence cited in the argument - the study showing correlation between social contact and mental skills. This choice neither strengthens nor weakens the connection between the study's findings and the conclusion that social interaction suffices for mental sharpness.
This choice provides a devastating alternative explanation for the study's findings. Instead of social contact improving mental skills, this suggests that declining mental health causes people to become more socially isolated. Under this scenario, we would still observe the same correlation (\(\mathrm{more\ social\ contact} = \mathrm{better\ mental\ skills}\)), but the causation would run in the opposite direction. This completely undermines the author's conclusion that social interaction suffices to maintain mental sharpness, since the correlation could simply reflect that mentally sharp people are more social, not that being social makes people mentally sharp.
This choice tells us that many people are good at both social interactions and math problems. This doesn't weaken the evidence at all - it's perfectly consistent with either the traditional view (that intellectual activities help) or the author's view (that social interaction helps). The fact that some people excel at both types of activities doesn't challenge the study showing correlation between social contact and mental skills.
This choice criticizes the methodology by noting the study analyzed existing data rather than collecting new data. However, analyzing data from prior studies (meta-analysis) is a legitimate and often superior research method. Whether data is new or previously collected doesn't inherently affect the validity of finding correlations between social contact and mental skills. This doesn't weaken the force of the evidence.
This choice suggests the mental sharpness tests were more like math problems than conversation. Even if true, this doesn't weaken the evidence. The study still found that people with more social contact performed better on these tests, regardless of what type of tests they were. If anything, this might strengthen the argument by showing social interaction helps even with math-like tasks.